We’ve just driven through a herd of perky goats and cows with washboard sides. Boys in soccer team shirts crack them along with sticks. Men walk among them, draped in various versions of the traditional Maasai red checked cloth, wrists hung over the hardwood sticks they carry across their shoulders.

They are coming home after a day’s grazing, continually watched and moved on by the boy herders. Traditionally it would have been to a kraal of thornbush, bringing them inside, safe away from lions and other predators.

But today it’s the village of Mamire, where washing hangs in lines and the children we pass chant, sing-song, for an empty water bottle. There is a tap near the village, plastic jerry cans and other containers clustered around it. Goodness knows how much water is carried in Africa every day.

Goodness knows how so much of Africa, the font of humanity, a continent full of riches, ended up so poor — so much of it raped by other thieving countries and hamstrung by corruption.

And goodness knows how Tanzanian President John Magufuli had the courage last year to give the government the right to tear up and renegotiate contracts for natural resources like gas or minerals. The new mining laws also removed the right to international arbitration, and required the government to own at least a 16 per cent stake in mining projects and increased royalties.

“We must benefit from our God-given minerals and that is why we must safeguard our natural resource wealth to ensure we do not end up with empty mining pits,” the leader told a rally in his home village of Chato.

This is the buffer zone between the national park and larger scale agriculture, with compensation for damage to farms caused by wildlife.

Tanzania is logging conservation successes with its community-based approach, including establishing Wildlife Management Areas, where villages set aside land for conservation in exchange for tourism revenues.

We drive along with this to our left, and Siegfreid Assey, the guide from Sanctuary Swala who has brought me out of the park to meet Stephen, points to the right. “This side they graze.” The land is nibbled, stones showing.

There is a clear demarcation, known and followed by all.

Maasai belief: “It takes one day to destroy a house; to build a new house will take months and perhaps years. If we abandon our way of life to construct a new one, it will take thousands of years.”

The Maasai are working to have one foot firmly planted in tradition, one in the modern world.

They have founded the Maasai Intellectual Property Initiative, dedicated to reclaiming ownership of what it calls their “iconic cultural brand”. They took on Louis Vuitton when it launched a fashion collection based on the Maasai shuka blanket.

Stephen Scourfield was in the thick of the biggest migration on the planet with more than two million wildebeest and a quarter of a million zebra dotted around the Serengeti.

The West Australian

VideoStephen Scourfield was in the thick of the biggest migration on the planet with more than two million wildebeest and a quarter of a million zebra dotted around the Serengeti.

A MIPI spokesperson explains: “The Maasai name, image and reputation is used around the world on products ranging from cars to shoes, and exercise equipment and is worth billions of dollars.”

They trade on the Maasai’s well-known and respected “culture of dignity, strength and survival skills in harsh conditions”.

“The income from our intellectual property is gained by companies across the globe without the permission of the Maasai, while about 80 per cent of the Maasai live below poverty levels.”

They want some of that income directed towards people still living life with dignity in harsh conditions.

THE BEEKEEPERS

Stephen Abel Shangwe and his friends Gwaatema Qwaray and Elliamino Petro are the village beekeepers.

They greet me the African way, with a three-part handshake (shake-grip-shake).

They have about 10 hanging hives here in Mamire. Unlike hives with brood boxes and frames for honeycomb, they are empty inside.

The beekeepers of Mamire just hang them from the trees with a little honey inside to encourage bees.

Touring company Abercrombie and Kent have sponsored the development of their beekeeping by funding more hives. In addition to the 10 hives here, the beekeepers now have 200 others.

They harvest just once a year, but in a good year each hive might produce 20 litres of honey, which is worth around $US5 a litre.

But the hives might only yield five or six litres, and some are ruined by heavy rains.

They are planning to roof the hives with iron sheet.

At the end of May, they will start checking the hives, to see how they are producing.

Full hives may drip honey. They harvest in June and July.

Camera IconBeehives.Picture: Stephen Scourfield/The West Australian

We drive a little way to Mwikangi, and walk up a stony scree slope to a big tree with hives hanging higgledy piggledy from its branches.

We don’t get too close. These are dangerous African bees.

There are few ants up the slopes, and Stephen points to another hill, where they have more hives hanging in its sizeable trees.

Beekeeping is one of the oldest practices carried out by the Maasai, who traditionally used honey for medicine and ceremonial brews. Honey was used for wound healing and to treat coughs.

Mostly log hives were used — a hollowed log of carefully selected size and thickness hung horizontally in a tree. I see one on the way to the village.

But Maasai would also chip out a hollow, particularly in baobab trees, encourage bees to it with a little honey, and harvest from this.

The Mamire beekeepers’ modern box hives have an interesting relationship with the adjacent national park.

While honey badgers may come from the conserved land to steal honey, there are also abundant flowering trees. The bees act as a natural barrier, says Stephen, because they will attack animals straying out of the park.

Which brings me to my most obvious questions. How do they harvest the honey and do they get stung?

They all grin. Yes, they’ve always got stung, but now the Abercrombie and Kent Philanthropy project has funded beekeeping protective clothing, with masks.

They climb the trees, and carefully lower one hive at a time, trying not to disturb the others.

They leave a little honey in each hive. “If you take it all, the bees will go,” Stephen says.

It is a difficult and precarious business.

Philanthropy has been integral to Abercrombie and Kent’s philosophy since the company’s founding in 1962. Geoffrey Kent, now 76, is the founder, chairman and chief executive of the company and credited with introducing luxury photographic African safaris.

A&K’s first conservation efforts were in Kenya’s Maasai Mara 50 years ago.

The commitment was formalised through Abercrombie and Kent Philanthropy, which aims to have a positive impact on lives and livelihoods in the communities where A&K takes guests. Some of the guests pay $US10 for honey, just to support them.

We all farewell. Again the three-part handshakes.

“Asante.” Thank you, brother.

FACT FILE

Abercrombie and Kent include Tarangire National Park and a stay at Sanctuary Swala in their touring programs for Tanzania. To plan and book, visit abercrombiekent. com.au or phone 03 9536 1800.

South African Airways flies daily to Johannesburg and connects to destinations throughout southern, east and west Africa. flysaa.com and travel agents

Stephen Scourfield was a guest of Abercrombie and Kent. They did not review or approve this story.